>> funding for overheard with evan smith is provided in part by provided in part by hillco partners. texas government affairs consultancy and its global health care consulting business unit, hillco health and by the mattsson mchale foundation in support of public television. and also by mfi foundation improving the quality of life within our community. and also by the alice kleburg reynolds foundation and viewers like you. thank you. >> i'm evan smith. he spent 44 years as a reporter and editor at the washington post, retiring in 2008 as executive editor - the top job at the paper. during his 17 years in charge, the post won 25 pulitzer prizes. today he's

the weil family professor of journalism at arizona state university's walter cronkite school. he's len downie. this is overheard. >> we have 15 or mor. >> i realized there weren't a lot of people writing things in my voice, so i realized i had to do it for myself. >> we are a better country than we are used to do but we have more to do and we need to get out. >> i would do that and i wanted to get that buzz you get from working at the absolute top dollar pay. [laughter] smith: len downie, welcome. downie:thank you. smith: very nice to have you here. downie: my pleasure. smith: i wonder if you miss your old job. here it's a couple of years out, uh, and, and you know, bin laden dies or gaddafi is killed, um, chris christy decides not to run for president or rick perry does any number of things on the campaign trail. and as a journalist, naturally, it's

like that whistle goes off and you, you run forward except you're no longer. downie:right. smith: .hearing those whistles are you? downie:yes, i do miss the journalism, the big stories, i have to say. and sometimes when one of those things happens i'm thinking about well we could do this side bar, and we should do this thing. smith right. downie:. we should do that thing, but, uh, everything else has changed. smith: yeah. downie:during just my short time away. it's only been four years now. smith: but in, but in terms of the media and technology it's a lifetime. downie:yes. it just changed so dramatically, and, uh, it uh, and so we now have a different news room than we had before. i still visit the newsroom often. uh, and now our newsroom is, is a multimedia newsroom. it's not a newspaper newsroom anymore. we are not a newspaper; we

we are not a newspaper; we besides newspaper stories. a reporter like dan balz, our lead political reporter, uh, who's, uh, not a spring chicken. but with. smith: but he's, he's proven he can learn new things. downie:but he's proven he can learn new things. smith: right. downie: because he now, he tweets, he blogs, he does early versions of the story for the web. smith: right. smith: i mean, if you think about it, a lot of the work that you're describing never sees print in the newspaper. a lot of it is. downie: no. smith: .is all this other stuff. downie: right. smith: and there was a while there, you remember, when we didn't think you were going to combine those functions. downie: correct. smith: there was a newspaper team and there was a web team. downie: exactly. smith: and there was an imaginary wall between them. downie: right. smith: why did we ever think that was a good idea? downie: well, at the post we thought it was a good idea. downie: because at that point the people in the newsroom didn't know anything about the web, and in fact were hostile to it. they saw it as competition, they saw is it going to take their jobs or whatever. smith: that was a big problem. reporters didn't immediately want to have to do these other things. downie: right. and they uh, and so we thought if they were in charge of this new web thing they wouldn't do a very good job. and so instead we brought in web people to do it. and they, they didn't do the reporting, we still did our journalism and sent it over to them and they webified it, if you will, put it out on, on the, on the web in different formats. smith: yeah. downie: uh, and things, and at first reporters in the newsroom would look askance at some at this stuff. smith: yeah. i'm sure. downie: and then they they have to start paying attention to blogs, which were still very foreign things.

smith: yep. downie:. not that long ago. uh, and so. smith: not always viewed as journalistic. downie: no, not always viewed as journalistic at all. smith: right. right. downie: uh, and so as they began moving into that world, suddenly they took an interest in our website. smith: sure. downie: and they said, hey, wait a minute. i'd like to do this in the web, i'd like to do this in the web, and that's when we realized that we had to bring them together because we had two different cultures. we had a technology culture and we had to put together them in one with news. smith: but the convergence was as much out of a need for survival. downie: oh, quite. smith: .as it was for the desire, a desire to grow. downie: quite. smith: uh, newspapers that don't embrace this new technology and embrace these new channels, these platforms. downie: right. smith: .are never going to make it in the world. downie: right. this is correct. smith: is the washington post always going to be with us as a newspaper? downie: well, i think so. uh, but again as i say, we're not just a newspaper anymore, we're a multimedia news organization. smith: you're a news organization. downie: so, so my concern is will the newsroom survive, your newsroom, our newsroom, the newsroom of the dallas morning news, not necessarily to put out anything in print, you don't put out anything in print. all you do is supply it to other people to put in print. smith: right. but i guess i'm asking that specific question. downie: yeah. smith: will there always be a print version? downie: well, certainly as far as, certainly as long as you and i are around i think

there will be. smith: yeah. downie: in part because our generation still reads newspapers. smith: right. downie:and when they, and that audience is getting smaller, and we're going to charge more for it. it will become a more elite audience unfortunately, because we, uh, the price of newspapers has never covered the cost of a newspaper. smith: right. downie: and it's going to have to cover more of the cost now. smith: yeah. downie: .because what's happened in this big change is that advertising revenue for print has gone way down because advertising spread out elsewhere on th web. most newspapers, the print revenue still is like four to one against the web reader. smith: too much to give up. downie: so it's too much to give up for quite a long time to go. is the, is the competitive set that the washington post now faces every day a good thing for the post or a bad thing for the post? downie: well, i always think competition is good. smith: yeah. downie: uh, you know, i, i lived through that wonderful time when uh, we were the last newspaper left in town, and before there was a web. smith: right. downie: and we were kings of the hill, and i think we work much harder now, uh, than we did back then. smith: yep. downie: even though we produced a lot of great journalism back then. i think competition is always good. smith: it makes you do your best work. downie: that it does for the i can remember as a young reporter having time to read magazines and go out for a beer and, and you know, take my time on things. and now

i would be tweeting from 7:00 in the morning, uh, and, you know, just working all day long. smith: well, there's no off button, right? downie: there's no off button. they work extremely hard. smith: yeah. downie: and i always tell the young journalists to be that i'm working with at arizona state, uh, that i, you know, we want the best and brightest of you in the business, you're going to have a lot of fun, it's very exciting, there's a lot of opportunity, but you are going to work very hard. smith: and of course, the pay, the payoff for that hard work is often that the reporters themselves, because they're on all these platforms, they get to be little brands of, of their own. downie: increasingly so. smith: i think about chris cillizza. downie: yeah. smith: let's think about chris cillizza for a second, who is, uh, he, i want to get his title right. am i remembering, he's managing editor of postpolitics.com? downie: yeah. i guess so, but what he really is, is the fix. smith: he's really the fix, which is the premier. downie: that's, that's how you know him. smith: . or a premier political blo.blog. he is a tv personality. downie: yes. smith: he's a prolific tweeter. downie: yes. smith: he obviously blogs, but beyond, uh, blogging, he reports in a way that takes the events of the day on a minute-by-minute basis and makes sense of them. downie: yes. smith: .provides context

and. downie: even has a staff of his own to help him with that report. smith: and has, how often does chris appear in the newspaper? downie: uh, he appears in the newspaper a few times a week with essentially things drawn from his blog that appear in the paper. smith: the bulk of his work, though, is not done for print. downie: the bulk of his work is done, is done for the web. smith: and the result of, of all this activity, this frenetic, peripatetic activity is that chris cillizza is now known around the world as a brand almost separate from the washington post. downie: yes. please don't say that too often because he already has a big head. smith: he would need a bigger staff, he might want a bigger salary. i guess the point i'm making is that there wasn't, there was a time not too long ago when newspapers like the post, when media organizations, um, frowned on the idea that the individual would be a brand. downie: right. smith: .unto himself. you had to subordinate that to the institutional brand. now the post benefits. downie: yes. smith: .i would submit, from chris cillizza being a robust personal brand. downie: yes. yes. and, you know, i, in, in a way this began and i just was at the ransom archive this morning going. smith: yeah. downie:. to ransom center, going through the watergate archive. smith: right. downie: and when you bring this up it makes me think one of the first reporter brands as opposed to columnists who were always brands. but wood. smith: woodward and bernstein. downie:not because we

decided to do that but because that's what happened as a result of the books and the movies and so on. smith: yeah. well, and in took a while, though, for that to become a comfortable space for institutions like the post. downie: yes. yes. and, and as you say, driven by the web. smith: right. downie: so now we have, uh, at a place like the cronkite school, uh, everybody has to do a blog, and one of the blogs that one of the students started a couple years ago was how can a student build their own brand as a journalist? smith: yeah. well, that's funny how that's. downie: yes, and it's being widely read. smith: right. and you encourage it in your new capacity, teaching these young minds how to think like journalists, like new journalists. they tweet, they're on facebook, they use all the platforms and all the tools available. downie: right. smith: uh, are they, are they good at the, at the shoe leather reporting? are you finding that this generation of kids. downie: yes. smith: you know, we talk about how this generation of kids has so much in front of them at any given time. downie: right. >> they are almost add that they're almost add.. downie: right. smith: are they able to focus enough to do serious investigative work? downie: well, those who hav

they are multi-media savvy. i don't teach them that. instead i teach them the old value and the old reporting and they love it and are good at it and are determined to do it. and uh, and they are able to use this new technology to buttress that kind of work. smith: right. downie: so when they go out, as many of them have done on various kinds of assignments all around the country for some of our big projects, they take with them in many cases cameras, video cameras, and still cameras, uh, and they're recording things and they're providing video to go along with their stories. and when they come back they can sit down with a web designer and say here's an, here's an interactive graphic i'd like to have so we can map the united states and we can say this state does this and this state does that. smith: right. so much more self motivated, self directed. downie: quite. smith: right. and it allows them to, uh, to advance their, their work to places it never would have been able to go. downie:yes. and as a result, when people always ask me why are you teaching people journalism when there aren't going to be any jobs? well, the sad part is the jobs that are disappearing, i'm afraid, are for mid-career, mid-level people who cannot keep up with the technology.

smith: can't adapt. downie:right. and while those jobs disappear, new ones are being created in our newsroom and in other newsrooms, and those jobs are primarily filled by these young people who have skills the older people don't have. smith: you mentioned values that you teach. so teach me, teach us. what, what, in a nutshell, what are the in a nutshell, what are the journalist values that you, as an old dog. downie:right. smith: .teach these new kids. downie:well, well, for me it begins with accountability reporting. i was an investigative reporter as a young, as a young journalist, and edited investigative reporting my whole career. smith: right. downie:uh, and i feel that holding everybody in power and influence over the rest of us accountable is one of the, is the number one job for journalism. uh, that's what goes out to texas tribune, for example. smith: right. downie:uh, and, um, so we, we try to inculcate that in how you go about doing it, and in order to do it right you have to be accurate, and you have to be fair, which is not easy nowadays. smith: right. downie: uh, and so for instance, i, i, i'm always asked well, what about all those blogs and things ,what do you think about them? under the first amendment, first of all, they all have to exist. smith: right. downie: and, but second of all, the more voices, the more reporting that's going on, fine, but you've got to be able to differentiate. the audience needs to, between those things that

are true and not true. and so that's very important, and for these journalists to stay on the right side of truth and be recognized for that in the jobs that they do later, so people can make that choice when they go on the web. smith: why do you say it's hard to be fair these days? fairness is the same as it always was. fairness is fairness. downie: we are, we are a very opinionated country, thank, thank god, and the internet has made it possible for everybody's opinions to be heard. smith: yep. downie: and it's made it possible for everybody who wants to have their opinions reinforced to go to the website or the news show that will reinforce their, their views. smith: one of the, it's confirmation bias they call it, right? yeah. downie: exactly, confirmation bias. so the bias is out there and people are rewarded for bias with nice book contracts and good jobs. smith: it's true. downie: and things like that. and so for these young journalists, i want them to hope that they will find a different kind of reward. smith: resist the temptation. downie: resist that temptation. smith: is it possible for the media to be nonpartisan? i can tell you that when we launched the tribune and we said. downie:right. smith: we're going to be nonpartisan, people cackled. downie:right. smith: well, you're the media. you can't be nonpartisan. downie:right. smith: you can't be fair. downie:yes. smith: do you think it's possible?

downie:yes. it definitely is possible. i insist that the washington post is nonpartisan. now does everybody work. smith: the, the perception, you know. downie:i know. smith:is that you guys are a bunch of liberal pigs. downie:well, you know, the, the perception is that we're liberal because we are, we do accountability journalism.establishment up to, to be accountable, for some reason people translate that to being liberal, when there isn't, just ask bill clinton if he thinks the washington post. smith: well, sometimes the establishment is democratic. downie:was biased for him. yeah. smith: i mean, that's, you know, it comes around. downie:exactly . smith: it may be that there's a republican president, you're tough on george bush downie:right. smith: but then you're tough on barack obama. downie:yes. the clintons thought the post did a -- and you are holding them accountable for certain smith: so this is really aboutestablishment versus anti-establishment rather than left versus right? downie:that's what i think, so, but the audience could perceive it the way the audience perceives it. so i smith: do you consider the editorial page of the washington post to be liberal?

downie:uh, not anymore, interestingly. it still is liberal, and my interpretation of it is -- i was executive editor i didn't vote and i didn't read our editorial page. smith: right. downie:because i didn't want to be influenced, uh, in the final decisions i made for the newspaper. so now i start reading it. it's start reading it. it's clearly liberal on social issues but it's very conservative on foreign. smith: on defense. downie:.foreign policy, defense, national security. smith: is the new york times liberal? downie:uh, i believe its editorial page is liberal, from what i read. smith: is the news coverage liberal? downie:i mean, that's hard for me to say. uh, because i'm, you know. smith: you sound like herman cain, it's not a denial. downie:i know. well, the way i, the way i can judge news coverage is by being involved in it. smith: yeah. smith: yeah.that's why, uh, you know, people would always ask me about things that were going on at the post. i can talk about that because i was involved in it. i can't talk about decisions being made elsewhere. smith: how about the wall street journal? is it conservative? because you know that's the perception that it's at times liberal. downie: well, i do the editorial page, the editorial page and all the op-ed material is conservative. the news columns, it's hard to discern, for me, very much bias. smith: yeah. do you think that the murdoch-owned wall street journal is still doing a good job? downie: it's doing a different job. and so it depends on your view of what kind of financial news you

want, and what kind of investigative reporting you want. smith: yeah. downie: i'm told by people more interested in financial news than i am, they're still doing a good job on that, even though it's, there's, there's, and they have more general interest news in the paper at the same time.same time. smith: yeah. downie: but what i miss is a lot of the investigative reporting they did before. let me ask you about uh, the, the new world that has sprung up around folks like, uh, like you and organizations like the washington post. you made a, a very, uh, uh, well circulated comment about aggregators. i think you referred to arianna huffington and her like at one point as parasites. downie: yes. smith: aggregation has become a staple of a lot of news organizations products. downie: yes. smith: not just the new media organizations, but frankly you'll see ground ups and the washington post. downie: of course. smith: let me stand up for arianna huffington, and say, what, what i'm being provided by the huffington post is uh, a menu of things out there. i might have to go to 30 different places to get, now i'm able to go to one place. why is that bad? why is that parasitic? downie: right. uh, the question is whether or not you are producing original journalism of your own at the same time, and since i

made that remark in london, it's not cause and effect it's just happenstance, they've been trying to do a lot more original journalism at the huffington post. they deserve credit for that. they've been hiring reporters. smith: right. downie: now, they still publish a lot of, you know, they still put up on their site lots of blogs that people provide free for them. smith: right. downie: and i still question whether that's a, a proper business model. smith: so the, one of the parasitic aspects of this is they're taking advantage of free labor. downie: exactly. smith: but my understanding was that your concern was more in the area. downie: but it also was aggregation too. smith: . taking five paragraphs of a six-paragraph story. downie: that we, that we, that we spent thousands and thousands of dollars. smith: that you spe. downie: to cover smith: . and then directing people to the washington post for the sixth paragraph. downie: right. smith: and saying it's aggregation. downie: so when we aggregate in our political section of our website, which we do, other interesting political stories so people can see other. smith: well, afore-mentioned cillizza does this all the time. downie: yes. but at the same time, we're also spending lots of money doing our own original journalism alongside it. so i look at that kind of aggregation differently. smith: so, so as long as the huffington post does original journalism, you don't consider their aggregation of other people's journalism alongside that to be theft? downie: it, i never said theft. smith: no, that was my word.

downie: right, okay. i never said theft. smith: no. downie: uh, but, um, uh, it, it depends on the, on how they go about doing the aggregating. are they giving proper credit to the original, to the original provider? are they, are they using so much of the material that you never have to go to the website of the new york times or the washington post to read the actual story? smith: right. downie: for example, are the things that matter. if you notice the things that we aggregate, they're relatively short, and we kind of urge you to go, go see politico. smith: well, they may, they may just be a link, in fact. downie: yeah. right. go, go see the story in politico, we're fine with that. come back and see us later. smith: you mentioned politico. uh, given the fact that the washington post is in a company town. downie: yes. smith: and the company is the government, you cover politics disproportionately. downie: yes. smith: relative to other folks. does the arrival of a politico make you think this is, i mean, again you said competition is a good thing. downie: right. smith: but you look at, politico is obviously eating a little bit of your lunch or they're trying to eat a little bit of the food off your plate. downie: well, uh, in terms of business model, not really. smith: right. downie: uh, because their business model is based on issue advertisings in their paper version of politico. a lot of people around the country don't know they print it.

smith: don't even know they do it. downie: right, they produce a paper newspaper for circulation only on capitol hill for free, and as a result of that circulation amongst all the members of congress, they have to be one of the places in addition to the washington post where you have to put your issue advertising. if you're lockheed martin and you want to lobby the pentagon, you've got to advertise in the washington post, occasionally in the new york times, and in the capitol hill newspapers. smith: right. downie: and so that's a good model for them. it doesn't take away anything from us. it's additional. smith: how about substantively? downie: but substantively i think that this is the ideal, uh, fit between a web-only product and a print and web product, because they're interested in the up-to-the-second scoop. smith: right. downie: and sometimes they're not always concerned about whether it's checked out yet and they can always come back later and say well, it checked out differently. uh, and.um, but by and large it's good stuff and they do some things in greater depth but the real in-depth is going to come from the washington post. and so we're going to do some of the fast stuff too, but what's going to be chris cillizza's take on things more than just the latest, the latest scoop. smith: but you will grant them that they have, uh, a flood the zone, to borrow your old competitor hell raises phrase. downie: right. smith: they have a flood the zone mentality with regard

to politics, and specifically the presidential race. downie: sure, yeah. know, both of its founders used to work with me. downie: john harris and jim van dye. smith: right. downie: and they, and they do a good job. uh, and but as i say, as a busines let me dangerously dip a toe into, uh, into the discussion of nonprofit journalism, acknowledging my own conflict of interest here. downie: yes. smith: because i run such an organization, but you have been an early advocate. downie: yes. smith: . for a nonprofit model, and i wondered if you would just talk about that in the abstract. downie: right. smith: why do you think nonprofit news has a place on this landscape? downie: right. well, first of all because the for profit news organizations have been squeezed so much. smith: yeah. downie: so they are getting smaller. we've been fortunate at the post that while we've gotten smaller we're still quite large compared to much of the country. but you'll see downie: not able to cover the state house, uh, in many cases the state house press corps are shrinking, uh, in, in, and washington press corps. smith: yep. downie: there, there is no washington bureau for an arizona news organization, except for cronkite news

service, walter cronkite school has the only bureau for, uh, arizona news organizations. so 30 or 40 arizona news organizations use the reporting by students at the cronkite bureau all the time. smith: and that's a nonprofit? downie: and that's a nonprofit, so uh, it, what's happened is that a lot of people have left for profit news organizations and want to still commit journalism and they have found funders of different kinds, angels of certain kinds, foundations that are interested in what's happening to the news, future of news, to help set up these nonprofits. and universities have been doing it also. smith: sure. downie: and, uh, and it does two good things. one, it provides competition with the old media. smith: sure. downie: and that's always, as i said competition is always better. smith: right. a rising tide helps everybody. downie: right. so you're going to cover some stories they're not covering. smith: yep. downie: but even more importantly you're going to, you're collaborating with the old media, the nonprofits are collaborating with the old media. smith: ideally. downie: ideally. and as a result are providing news for those readers, for those audiences they wouldn't have otherwise. uh, so for instance, the california watch in california. smith: you used to serve on the board of california

watch. downie: i served on the board, board of the center for investigative reporting, which started california watch a couple years ago, uh, and they provide, um, content all the time to 50, 60 news organizations throughout the state of california, from the state government and on state issues that wouldn't, that wouldn't be covered otherwise. smith: but is the financial model for these organizations sustainable? in other words, if you look out two years, five years, 10 years. downie: right. smith: the, the, what it takes to run a nonprofit news organization is a whole lot of elbow grease and area fundraising. downie: right. big huge question. smith: huge question. downie: big huge question. so they're, most of the financial models are fragile. a few, a few like texas tribune are still robust. but again looking three years down the road you've got a hole to fill all the time with new, with new, uh, new fundraising. smith: as if, as if reporting, uh, on the big issues of the day is not hard enough work. downie: right. exactly. smith: you then have to figure out how to pay for it. downie: in fact, that's another interesting aspect of this because when i was, you know, editor at the post, uh, by and large you, you had a wall between you and the business side. smith: true. downie: so that they wouldn't influence our reporting. uh, and now if you're very good at this like the young man who

started the voice of san diego, they have to be business people. smith: right. downie: as well as journalists. smith: well, the wall is now, at least it's porous. downie: right. or, or it's inside the editor's head or the ceo's head. smith: right. downie: where okay, i can understand i'm doing this over here but it's not going to influence our journalism. smith: and, and, in your experience, does it influence the journalists? downie: no, not that i've seen. smith: yeah. downie: not that i've seen but it's interesting. smith: well, let's hope. downie: it's an interesting question and one we have to keep watching because some funders, as you may know, want news covered a certain way if they're going to give you their money. smith: well, and the answer has to be i don't want your money. downie: right. we want oceans cleaned up so we'll give you money for all the stories that urge people to clean up oceans, and they're going to say no to that. smith: but, but let's walk back from that. so what if a foundation comes to you and says, i'm willing to give you money because i believe, we believe institutionally that there ought to be more robust reporting on the environment. downie: exactly, and that's perfectly fine. smith: without specifying what stories, or what coverage. downie: exactly, right. and you can hear this on npr every day where they say it's a foundation grant for coverage of education or. smith: indeed. downie: . a foundation grant for coverage of faith. smith: okay. we have a couple of minutes left. i've got to ask you a

question i have been dying to ask you. how in blazes, when you were deputy metropolitan editor of the washington post, and you supervised coverage of watergate, how did you know mark felt was deep throat and not tell anybody? downie: no, i didn't know then. smith: you did not know. downie: i'll try to make this answer very quick. i did not know then. smith: that's okay, yeah. downie: only ben bradley and carl bernstein and bob woodward knew. smith: well, when did you know? downie: i didn't know for years afterwards. so, so but what i did know was.we were just going through the archive again today. smith: yeah. downie: because this was such a sensitive story, we made them type out all their notes from all their interviews from all their confidential sources. smith: right. downie: their many confidential sources, and every confidential source except deep throat had their name at the top of it, so i knew who deep throat wasn't when people would speculate. smith: oh, well that's. downie: right. smith: . but that's so interesting. that's great. downie: so when people would say. smith: it's like a game. downie: but people would say alexander haig is deep throat. no, he isn't. he was at the top of the smith: i know he's not. downie: so that was an advantage. so i figured i can guess, right? so after everything was over and nixon resigned and everything, i, i think about this, and i decide, i, i try out richardson. what was his first name? smith: elliot richardson. downie: eliot richardson the

former attorney general, was my first guess because he was fired during the saturday night massacre. smith: right. downie: uh, and later on he became a good friend of a washington post columnist named mary mcgrory and through mary he would come to me with various theories about things we ought to be covering, things we ought to investigate. so i thought he's got the right mind for that. smith: yeah, sure. downie: so i, so i go to woodward and i said, i think it's elliot richardson. he said i'm not going to tell you as long as, you know, as long as he's alive. as long as, yeah, as long as deep throat's alive i'm not going to tell you. so i waited and waited and poor elliot richardson died and he wasn't deep throat. so i, i, it's like i had one more guess, which was l. patrick gray, who also was not on their notes. smith: right. he was the fbi director. downie: he was the fbi director at the time. smith: right. downie: uh, for a short period of time, essentially was pushed out by nixon, so i figured. smith: well, a lot of speculation about that. downie: yeah. so i figured there's a very good, and he was not one of the named confidential sources that i knew about, so i guessed him and years went by and he died and it wasn't l. patrick gray. [laughter] smith: it wasn't him. downie: so i figured in this game i only get three strikes, i mean, otherwise i'm going to be a fool

because i had such a good start, you know? smith: yeah. downie: so i, i thought carefully and suddenly i remembered how much came, how much could have come from the fbi and how there's only one person near the top of the fbi who would have been trustworthy enough for that, uh, and i had had contact with mark felt briefly as an investigative reporter once and was impressed by him, and so i wrote his name down this time on a piece of paper, put it in a sealed envelope, very formal, and gave it to bob, here's my last strike. you let me know when. so time goes by and woodward is always speaking on campuses. smith: yeah. downie: about watergate, and he would always be asked about deep throat and he would always say i can't talk about him because he's still alive. and then he started saying well he's very ill, so i think pretty soon you'll know who he is. so i called him into my office and i said, wait a minute! if deep throat's going to die any time soon we have to make plans. smith: we have to be the ones to break it. downie: we have to have stories ready in the bank and so on and so forth. and he's behaving kind of strangely and finally i said, bob, you're not telling me something are you? and he said, well, i, i've written a book about our relationship and i've got it sitting in my house. and, uh, you know, i'd like to have that book published

when he dies. i said, bob, you can have that book published when he dies, but everything in it is going to go in the washington post first. so i want to see that book. and so the next morning he took me to, i went to his house. we had breakfast and he brings out the manuscript and it's mark felt. smith: and he broke the confidence that. downie: well, only with me. smith: he broke his silence. downie: only with me. smith: amazing. downie: but then the important thing is that after that time the family wanted deep throat identified while he was still alive for whatever reason. and he was suffering from dementia so bob actually went out to see him, took him out to lunch and the family says he really wants this, and bob concluded from lunch with him that he just was not in a position health wise to make that decision. smith: yeah. downie: he just could not make a, a good decision. and so bob decided , no i'm still not going to do it, and as a result the family went to vanity fair. smith: vanity fair. downie: and the story was broken there. so, uh, people always say, well don't you feel badly about that? i said no, that shows the post keeps its promise no matter what. smith: right. well, there's a certain amount of honor in the decision that you made. downie: exactly. smith: good. i'm sorry we're out of time. i could ask you 100 more questions, but it's been great to talk to you. downie:nice to talk to you. smith:len downie, thank you very much. downie: thank you very much.

♪ ♪ >> funding for overheard with evan smith is provided in part by hillco partners. texas government affairs consultancy and its global health care consulting business unit, hillco health and by the mattsson mchale foundation in support of public television. and also by mfi foundation improving the quality of life within our community. and also by the alice kleburg reynolds foundation and viewers like you. thank you.